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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

Yet another reason why the line-item veto should be allowed at the Federal level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-item_veto_in_the_United_S...

The last thing we need is the Executive rewriting legislation that has passed through Congress, broken as that Congress may be. Fix the legislature if you think the legislature is broken. You don't further skew what little remains of the separation of powers.

Hmm, What if it was made such where the president 'line-items' it, but the vetoed version still has to go back to the House and Senate to Re-Approve?

This has advantages over the current practice, where if a president wants a line-item struck they more or less have to veto the whole thing, and that is how the news can/would report it.

Contrast to the optics of an 'item-strike', where it is more natural to report that the Executive branch 'almost' supports it, but it's up to the House and Senate to decide whether %STIMULUS_PACKAGE% really needs a 20 year copyright extension rider.

i think bill stuffing like we are seeing should be the target to eliminate

1000% this. Bill stuffing is a gross abuse of power and one of the worst forms of cronyism and manipulation.

It makes me want to run for president with the promise that I'd veto any bill that touches more than one topic to force Congress to either solve specific needs or to force them to come together to obtain a veto-proof majority.

How?

grass roots public awareness campaign is a start.

prohibit linking non budgetary matters to budget bills [among others] that are required to pass for the government to continue functioning.

prohibit lobbied bills from being packed into operational bills or other constituitives.

eventually, one bill one topic period.

Topic as in U.S.C. title?

this needs work as well , those titles are very often misleading, and dont reflect content or purpose.

I'm referring to the titles of U.S.C. sections, not of bills, in case that wasn't clear.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text

It really shouldn't. Read the Wisconsin section of that article to see why.

As a Laboratory of Democracy, Wisconsin shows why the line item veto should be "strike the whole item or leave it as is" and nothing in between, otherwise you're empowering The Executive to effectively write legislation.

Then then legislature needs to be really careful over what is and isn't a full line, otherwise they could end up giving the executive arbitrary powers.

If the legislature wants to give the executive the option of passing a law in multiple ways, they can do that explicitly.

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